Computer games and the development of children or why I will force my child to "engage in nonsense"

    Get away from the computer, sit at it all day. Go teach lessons. Otherwise, you will remain a fool for life . ” How many times in childhood I heard these words. And to all my objections about the usefulness of my occupation, I always received only surprised eyes and twisting a finger at the temple.

    And after 15 years, when the issue of raising my own child loomed on the horizon, I decided to think again about the role of computer (and everything that can be included in this concept) games in the development of a small person.

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    I will rank the acquired skills according to their relevance and need for the child. I will try to exclude games that carry along with the positive and negative in the form of, for example, shooting people.

    So, let's start with the most classic and necessary things, such as early arcades like Arkanoid and Tetris.

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    These seemingly simple games develop a child’s hand motility, logic, the ability to think several steps ahead, to assess the situation. These skills are fundamental in the life of every person, of course, you can instill all these skills with other methods, but if a child likes to learn them through the game, then why bother him.

    Move on. Reaction-developing games such as Earthworm Jim, Dangerous Dave (I promised to exclude shooting, but here we shoot cartoon square zombies, this doesn’t count) or Prince of Persia, in which, despite the low pace of the game, you had to have excellent reflexes to jump over many obstacles and avoid traps. Also, the child learns endurance and becomes less careless in life situations.

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    Socializing games. Here I would give an obvious primacy to the The Sims series. After playing this game, the child begins to accept primary social values ​​like “The house needs to be kept clean”, “If you don’t study, then you won’t be hired,” and “If you don’t work, then there’s nothing to buy to eat”, and eat I always want to. Moreover, “Sims” give the child a first idea of ​​relations with the opposite sex, absolutely innocently explaining that you need to behave well with girls and give them compliments.

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    Also, to some extent, the MMORPG series can be attributed to this category. Those that focus on teamwork, such as WOW or Dota2. The child begins to realize that having even the coolest elf of level 80 does not succeed alone in life. You need to look for friends, at least situational, who will help you. And this is the ability to negotiate, to conduct dialogues, some kind of collective feeling.

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    On my own, I’ll add that the “Schoolboy” application from “Smiles.School card” also has the same opportunity . It is designed to both unite children in one information field, providing them with a platform for data exchange, and to establish their communication through built-in games for several players. Also, the application performs all the functions of the "Electronic Diary"for a child.

    Next, I would put a whole set of quest games - from the earliest to the modern. Such as Neverhood, Grim Fandango, Myst, Syberia or Broken Age. Here I would add the “Space Rangers”, with their endless text quests. All these toys combine the tasks that they set for the player. This is solving puzzles and unraveling puzzles. The ability to conduct dialogs. When completing such quests, the child develops visual memory and trains logical thinking. The same effect can be obtained if you seat him for solving crosswords and sudoku, but what the child will do more willingly: it is not clear for what purpose to fill in the squares on the sheet or to solve the mythical secret of the magical city in order to save humanity?

    By the way, the pathological craving for helping others and saving those who are in trouble is a side, but a very pleasant bonus from such games.

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    Now let's move on to “whistle toys,” as my mother would say, who can help the child specifically during school hours. I specifically do not include in the list those that were developed as educational, only entertaining.

    For example, to interest a child in studying physics or chemistry, games like modern Amazing Alex are suitable. Then he learns where to apply force to get the desired result, or that when heated or cooled, substances can change their properties. Well or that on a cat it is not necessary to throw off a bowling ball.
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    To teach your child the basics of biology, I advise you to introduce him to the creation of EA Games - Spore. The game will tell him about the theory of evolution, microbiology, the animal world, food chains and much more.

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    Total strategies such as Europa Universalis, Victria, Victory Day, Civilization or the Total War game series can help your child with history and geography. Do not have time to look around how your child will google his own years of the Napoleonic Wars, the causes of Franco-Prussian conflicts and the borders of the Ottoman Empire until 1908.
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    As you can see, not everything is bad that is played on the computer. Above, I wrote that there are games that carry a negative in themselves, and there are also those to which children should not be allowed categorically. Your task is to instill in your child a love of proper entertainment, and there is a proven way: play with him!

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    Only registered users can participate in the survey. Please come in.

    How do you feel about or will you relate to your child’s computer games?

    • 10.2% I will encourage 226
    • 72% Everything is good in moderation 1597
    • 9.7% Let him decide what to do 216
    • 5.5% Better to play football or robber Cossacks 122
    • 2.4% Computer games are evil! 54

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